Preparing New Budget for BHC

Once again Black Hawk College is trying to put together a new budget, not knowing how much it'll receive from the state. On Monday, the board of trustees discussed a preliminary budget with staff for the fiscal year beginning July lst.

The proposal from Chief Financial Officer Steve Frommelt includes 3.6 million dollars from the state, or about 10 per cent of the total, but he doesn't know when or if Black Hawk will actually receive that much.

So far the impact of the state budget impasse has been the elimination of 17 full-time jobs, with most at the main campus in Moline.

"We hope that reduction is over and there will be no further actions on that. But with the uncertainty of the state, that always remains an open-ended question until we get a regular budget from the state of Illinois."

In the past, when there was a state budget, Frommelt says the college received about 7 1/2 million dollars each year. But under last year's "stop gap" appropriations, Black Hawk received 3.6 million.

Trustees will review the budget again next month then put it "on display" for a month (available for public inspection), with final approval set for late June.